Editor’s Note: For our OsideNews readers, the North Coast Current introduces Living Creatively, a column by artist and author Barbara Basia Koenig.

After any difficult time in our life, it helps to do things that get us back to a place of peace and quiet, one that gives us space to begin healing and restoration. To feel whole and well again, perhaps we can take a few moments each day to rewind our thoughts.

One way is to sit in a comfortable place where we can relax for a few moments, one that pleases us because it feels safe and, ideally, is close to nature. When we are close to nature, we see how things grow. We are part of nature, and to blossom we must also allow ourselves to grow. We can grow beyond the pain and suffering that saps us of inner peace and helps us be whole and well again.

Peace can be experienced in a relaxed frame of mind in a moment of recall, one that brings a smile to our lips, a sense of home, belonging and knowing. Enjoy the moment and allow yourself to think of a quiet time, a peaceful place, when you experienced what peace felt like. A place of peace is at home within each of us when we slow down, open our ears to hear, our eyes to see, our hearts to feel, and our minds to know.

We can truly know something only if we experience it. There is a still small voice within us that experiences what is true. It speaks to us by helping us recognize when we are on a productive path and helps to point us in a direction to attain inner peace.

It reveals its presence within us as an urge to take certain steps that give us courage to forge a new beginning. It generates ideas on how to solve a problem. Its presence within us encourages us to make good decisions that not only impact us but others in a positive way. It generates motivation and dispels fear. It helps us recognize confirming synchronicities, those coincidences that affirm our connection to a greater reality of which we are a part.

If we nurture it, our inner voice points us in the direction of attaining an inner peace that manifests as peace of mind. There is an old saying: “If there is peace in the person, there is peace in the family. If there is peace in the family, there is peace in the community. If there is peace in the community, there is peace in the city. If there is peace in the city, there is peace in the state. If there is peace in the state, there is peace in the country.”

It is up to all of us, first individually and then collectively, to bring peace to the country. It starts with listening to the still, small voice within that is one with nature. Nature is not at odds with itself. The universe is not disharmonious with itself. We were born totally open, loving, and at one with the divine.

In our quiet times that we seek peace, look to the flowers, trees, plants and birds, and see, hear and feel what is. “What is”, is truth. As was spiritually said, “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.” Go within, in your quiet time, seeking inner peace. And as was also spiritually said, “Go into your own closet (your quiet mind), and after you have closed the door, be still and know.”

Creativity is also sparked by the still, knowing inner voice that speaks loudly through music, dance, theater, film, the visual arts, crafts, writing and poetry, all forms of creative expression. In the spirit of living creatively, I have written a poem called a haiku, that I hope you might enjoy. If you do, and would like to learn how to write your own haikus, please let me know. I’ll include that information in the next column.

In spring flowers bloom.
Birds, bees, butterflies abound.
New life everywhere.

Barbara Basia Koenig is a local artist and personal counselor. Email columnists[at]northcoastcurrent.com.

Columns represent the views of the individual writer and do not necessarily reflect those of the North Coast Current’s ownership or management.